Why Can’t It Be Like Popcorn?

We all know people who always seem to be in a rush. They run from thing to thing, as the saying goes, like a chicken with its head chopped off. Did you ever wonder where that saying originated? After a chicken is decapitated, the adrenaline in its muscle tissue briefly causes the chicken to convulse, thereby the bird flaps its wings wildly, giving it the appearance of running around. We use that statement today to describe someone who is in a frenzied state.

How about the person who never appears to be in a hurry? They are the person who is always late to the party, the person who drives ten miles per hour under the speed limit, and that person you want to light a fire under to get them to move faster.

We are a society that no longer wants to wait for anything. We have no patience for waiting.

At the 1933 World’s Fair, Westinghouse introduced a shortwave radio transmitter than cooked food between two metal plates. Thirteen years later, Raytheon unveiled something called the microwave oven. However, it wasn’t until the late 1960s that this appliance became affordable to the general public, allowing households to dramatically reduce the time it took to heat food and water. Now today, for many of us, that two minutes it takes to pop popcorn seems like an eternity. Think about how we communicate with people these days. With emerging technology and the many social media platforms, communication that used to take days if not weeks is now immediate. And be honest, most of the time we have no patience for slow replies.  

That same philosophy of “I want it now” carries over into our view of how God operates. When we ask Him for something, we want it right now. For example, if you are unemployed and you are looking for a job, most likely each morning you pray for God to help you in your job search. For many, what that really means is “God, help me get a job right now!” That is not a bad request, but at least for me, when my “I want it now” timetable isn’t immediately met by God, I get upset and frustrated. Maybe you do too. If you are honest, whatever it is that you have been praying for and the days or weeks or months have gone by, you begin to wonder where God is and why He seems to be taking His good old time.

God is never early. He is never late. God is not constrained by the time limits we tend to put on Him. In 2 Peter 3:8 we read this, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” We see things through finite eyes; God sees things through infinite eyes. God sees the whole of life; we on the other hand, have very limited vision. Two things grow us in our faith, and neither are places we enjoy residing. Those two things are pain and waiting, and often they go hand in hand. Ecclesiastes 8:6 gives us this warning, “For there is proper time and procedure for every matter, though a person may be weighed down by misery.”

I am not minimizing the struggles you might be experiencing today. Many of you are facing real hardships and time seems to be running out. He keeps His promises and He always shows up. Maybe not how or when you expect, but He does always show up. What I want you to hear is that God is with you in your struggles. He is instructing you to wait for strength (Isaiah 40:31), wait for direction (Proverbs 3:5-6), and wait for provision (Psalm 62:5).

So today, “Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage, for the LORD” (Psalm 27:14).